Emanuel Said to Quit Obama Campaign to Help Super-PAC

Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago, spoke to big donors at a brunch this morning in Charlotte, North Carolina -- one of three special activities planned for them during this week’s Democratic National Convention. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has left
Barack Obama’s re-election campaign to raise money for a super-political action committee backing the president and other
Democrats, according to two people familiar with the decision.

Emanuel, who resigned his campaign post last month, has
already raised $3 million for Priorities USA Action, a super-PAC
founded by former White House officials, said one of the people,
both of whom requested anonymity.

The news of Emanuel’s departure, reported earlier today by
the Washington Post, comes as federal disclosure filings show
Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney and his allies
with more cash on hand than the president and his supporters.

Romney, the Republican National Committee and two super-political action committees backing him reported a combined bank
account balance of $169 million on July 31. That compared with
$107 million for Obama, the Democratic National Committee and
Priorities USA Action.

Emanuel spoke to big donors at a brunch this morning in
Charlotte, North Carolina -- one of three special activities
planned for them during this week’s Democratic National
Convention. The brunch was held at a private home and also
included Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, House
Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and other elected
officials as “special guests,” according to an invitation
posted online by Politico.

Plea for Money

Last night, about 120 people from the same group of donors
listened to Democratic strategist Paul Begala during a cocktail
party near the convention arena. Begala, who has assisted
Priorities with fundraising, stood atop a table and urged donors
to write more checks.

“I don’t want you to give until it hurts. I want you to
give until it feels good,” Begala later said in an interview
that he had told them.

The super-donor activities conclude tomorrow night with a
music bash after Obama’s gives his nomination acceptance speech.
All three events are sponsored by Unity Convention 2012, a group
that includes Priorities, as well as two super-PACs devoted to
helping Senate and congressional candidates.

Emanuel, 52, a onetime White House chief of staff to Obama,
said the president will give a “big, visionary” acceptance
speech tomorrow night at the convention.

‘Where We’re Going’

Speaking at a Bloomberg News/Washington Post breakfast
today in Charlotte, the Chicago mayor said Obama needs to tell
the nation “this is where we’re going, and this is how we’re
going to get there” on how he would lead during a second term.

“I wouldn’t give a speech on the role of government,”
Emanuel said later. “This is not a political science class.”

The mayor also worked as an adviser under former President
Bill Clinton, who headlines tonight’s convention speakers.
Emanuel said he expects Clinton’s speech will have “a little
more edge” than Obama’s.

Voters sometimes have a “hazy image” about the
bipartisanship attributed to the Clinton administration, Emanuel
said as the former chief of staff sought to reduce hard feelings
about party bickering during Obama’s tenure.

‘Don’t Remember’

“I don’t remember that bipartisanship” during those years,
he said, referring to 1990s fiscal disputes that led to a
shutdown of the government and fights over education and the
environment.

Obama and Clinton have grown closer, and any distance in
their relationship during the first part of Obama’s presidency
is understandable, given the 2008 Democratic primary fight that
Obama waged with Clinton’s wife, Emanuel said.

“President Obama beat Hillary Clinton,” he said. “Bill
Clinton is a very protective husband and very competitive. It
took him more time to get over it. He got over it.”

Obama made Clinton secretary of state. Clinton voted for
Obama in 2008 and will do so again in 2012, Emanuel said.

“And he’s going to campaign vigorously for him wherever he
wants,” he said.

Emanuel declined to predict odds for an Obama victory over
Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and private-equity
executive. He said the race is close and three presidential
debates scheduled for October will be “consequential,” and
especially influential for undecided voters.

‘Hold Out’

“They are going to hold out to the very end to make a
decision,” he said of a sliver of undecided voters who remain
on the sidelines, typically less than 10 percent in polls.

Obama’s campaign has been “extremely successful in
defining the differences between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama,”
Emanuel said. “Mitt Romney has a real difficult problem between
working-class, middle-class voters identifying with them,” he
said.

In response, Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg said in a
statement the differences between Obama and the Republican
“couldn’t be clearer,” adding that “middle-class Americans
have been crushed in the Obama economy, and even President Obama
has admitted that Americans are not better off than they were
four years ago.”

2016 Campaign

Emanuel said Republicans aren’t “too happy with their
nominee” and are already looking toward the 2016 presidential
campaign, including the potential candidacy in that race of
Romney’s running mate, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

Emanuel predicted Republicans in the November election will
lose seats in the U.S. House, where the party has a 240 to 190
advantage, with five vacancies.

“He may lose the majority, but he’ll lose seats either
way,” Emanuel said of House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio.

Asked why some voters only like Obama now instead of loving
him, Emanuel said it was “better than the alternative” and
that he didn’t agree with the premise of the question. He said
any frustration was mostly directed at Obama’s inability to
change the partisan bickering in Washington.

“They know he inherited a bad deal,” he said. “He has
made changes and significant progress, but not enough that they
have felt it.”

Chicago Projects

Emanuel, who wasn’t endorsed by most Chicago unions before
his election in February 2011 to run the third-most-populous U.S.
city, said the infrastructure projects he’s pushing are
“putting a lot of people to work” in his city.

“So not all organized labor is upset,” he said, noting
local and state government has “some difficult choices” to
make when it comes to asking unions to give back contract
provisions they were promised.

“You have to appreciate the perspective of a firefighter,
a teacher, a police officer -- they got something agreed to,”
he said. “And now we have to change that, because things were
agreed to that everybody knew when they were at the table they
could not keep.”

Emanuel is facing a possible teachers strike in just five
days in Chicago and has cut back the duration of his visit to
Charlotte, following his speech to the convention yesterday.